Love, or Something Like it
by Amynta
Summary: Life isn't some clichéd romance story. Life is strolling along aimlessly and suddenly thinking you might be in love, or at least something like it.


A/N: I realize I haven't updated in months and months, so I apologize and hope you enjoy this one-shot at least. I would have worked on To Dance, but I wasn't feeling very funny when I was writing this, so… Well, it's another Dramione, like all my others, and non-epilogue compliant, obviously :) My love to you all! Have a happy holiday season.

Disclaimer: It's not mine, but that's just fine.

**Love, or Something Like it**

She runs into him for the first time in all of five years in the bookstore between the cookbook shelf and the history one. He's taller than she remembered and somehow sharper, as though the time that softened out the corners on everyone she knew, including her own self, was somehow reversed in effect for the pale man before her. They don't fall into a glaring match, or suddenly realize they've been in love all along, or anything like what happens in the romance books she has tucked away in her bag under a revised copy of _Quidditch Through the Ages_ she's getting Ron for his birthday. Her inner dramatist protests that she really does deserve to have _some_ romance in her life- after all, she and Ron broke up three years ago and she hasn't had a love interest since. But they greet each other and step aside so they can get out of the other's way, and that's that.

o

The next time they meet is a much shorter two days later, while she is eating out for a night off cooking and he's eating out because that's what he does every night. Somehow they end up sitting next to each other, so they exchange the pleasantries due in such situations and eat their meal in a companionable sort of quiet. He asks her how her tiramisu tastes, and she says alright, would he like to try some, to which he politely declines.

Before they leave, he remarks that it was a nice time, perhaps they could eat together again sometime. Maybe, she replies. They won't be seeing each other for a while.

o

She is standing on the little stone bridge overlooking the town below when she spots a head of hair much fairer than any other she has ever seen. He chances to see her as he looks up and she gives a tentative wave, which he returns. Not making any change in his pace, he slowly makes his way up the winding stair up to the bridge. They are crumbling a little around the edges and at the base, where long cracks web their way through the gray material. He wonders if the builders of the structure had once though the rock impenetrable, or if they knew all along that it would fall but built it anyway. She marvels that time even rounds the boulders and yet here he stands in sharp relief against the cloudy sky.

He pauses when he reaches her place looking out on the people below, to greet her and note the weather before continuing on his way up and up the hill. After all, he'd been heading there all along.

o

At Ron's funeral, she feels lost, like she's woken up in a place she's never been before and doesn't quite know how to get back home. She's surrounded by people and she has a month's leave from work to collect herself, but she's not sure where to begin collecting. Harry has Ginny now, but Hermione is all alone in a world where she's met with death and prepared for parting too many times- beginning in her parents' death and ending in Ron's. She asks Draco to attend and when he does, she feels something she might have once called relief. It hurts, she tells him, it hurts but it doesn't get better, and he says he knows and that's all she needs anyone to say.

As they slowly slip into their seats, he comments that the late Weasley would probably have wanted to kill him had he known Draco would be attending his funeral. It's the first thing since she heard the news of Ron's accident that Hermione feels anything close to smiling, and that's why she knows that isn't true. Ron always wanted Hermione to be smiling, and if Ron wasn't there to make her smile anymore with his antics or caring he'd be glad for even Malfoy to do it in his place. She thinks the other Weasleys agree because they ask him to their dinner table afterwards and the house seems just a little less empty.

o

St. Mungo's may be a wizarding hospital, but as far as Hermione can see it's just like any muggle hospital but for the wands and the occasional explosions. Mediwizard is just a synonym for doctor, and waiting rooms are as tensely uncomfortable in either world.

She glances sidelong at his anxious profile as they wait for news of his mother's condition. Narcissa had never been the same since Lucius' death in prison and it's a wonder how Draco can stay so strong as to care for his mother all these years. The mediwizard's (doctor's, her mind snips) face is full of pity and apology. Hermione sees Draco's hand clench and his mouth tighten, and she closes her hands around his.

He stays the night by his mother's bedside and Hermione spends it by his side.

o

They're at her flat, munching on chocolate frogs and other assorted junk. She's introducing him to her telly and he's putting off introducing her to wizarding recipes he promised to because he's lazy like that. Nothing they're doing or talking about is really important or memorable or earth shattering. Inside the little space, all of existence is her and him and maybe the stuff littered all around.

Outside, the world goes on.

o

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that they haven't fallen in love. Neither is much bothered when they don't manage to see each other for a fair length of time, and there's no heart-pounding, lightening-fire, smoldering, intensity. But as they walk down cobbled-streets empty of people but filled with moonlight, she thinks he's rather lovely despite all his edges, and he thinks she's passably cute under all that hair and a funny-shaped nose.

It doesn't take a fool to figure they could. Fall in love that is.

o

The first time they kiss is under the eaves of a old wooden house on the edge of a forest and lake. Don't ask how they got there, it's a long story involving a-runaway-duck-Longbottom's-idiocy-favors-accidental-disapparition-and-then-some, they say. What's important anyways is that they end up meeting lips and she notices that somehow he finally seems a little less sharp and a little more soft. He thinks this woman- is she a woman already? Wasn't it only yesterday he was a ungrateful brat of a boy looking at a scrawny girl he didn't want to acknowledge might be his equal or greater?- is kind of beautiful sometimes. Contemplating love, or something like it, they don't go back home until late that night and that's ok, too. They have a long time yet.

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Reviews are loved for the warm fuzzies inspired :3


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